Journey to the Center of the Earth on Blu-Ray

Blu Ray is great for 3D movies because the high definition makes all the different depths of a scene perfectly distinct. The only unfortunate thing is that they’re using red/green glasses which warps the colors. I don’t quite understand how, if Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D used clear glasses in theaters, it can’t work like that at home. For now, we’ll have to live with this mixed bag on Blu Ray.

On Blu-Ray: Journey to the Center of the Earth

You still see all the detail in the sets and creatures. It’s just there’s a weird color effect from the glasses. All the locations and visual effects are crisp and clear, especially with the lines sharply defined at different distances. It’s just the red and green never quite converges to real life colors.

It’s better than old stuff like Freddy’s Dead but it still doesn’t quite look normal, and certainly doesn’t show of colors like 2D Blu Ray can. It sort of waters down everything to a neutral tone that’s neither as bright nor as dark as it should be. Even rubies just look like more rocks, not really shining distinctly from the background sets. And these are some lavish worlds, with the mushrooms and the seas and the overgrown plants and the boneyard. It’s not just rocky caves here.

The 3D effects do seem more pronounced than in other 3D Blu Rays. Actually, the only other one I saw was Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds, but here they’re really making things poke out, whether it’s creatures with long limbs reaching towards you or humans crawling through caves, pulling themselves out of the background. The depth of the caves is still pretty awesome though.

It’s actually the scenes at home before the adventure begins that look the most impressive. That’s just looking into a three dimensional house with everything at different distances. The colors actually blend in the most normal looking vision, as opposed to the underground fantasy land.